In an interview, Sandra Cisneros—the Latina writer behind many novels including "The House on Mango Street"—stated that there is no such thing as writer’s block, only a fear of what you have to say. Therefore, according to Sandra Cisneros, my inability to craft doesn’t mean I lack the depth, it just means I lack the correct chisel.
But maybe that’s not true.
Maybe I have no stories to tell. You see, I really want to be a writer. Well, a writer of feature films. Sometimes, when I’m sitting in the darkened theater and the lights just dimmed because the movie is starting, I imagine my name accompanies the words “written by” or even better “a film by.” I know in truth, these are just dreams but maybe in another life, they are premonitions.
Yet, every time I expect the words to flow out of me—to be able to craft a conversation between bitter lovers or forgotten friends. I freeze. There are no voices of characters in my head that all other writers speak of. I don’t feel the pull of another being inside me, begging for a way for someone to interpret their mess.
When writers state how the characters create their own storylines and mend the intended events into their own--I am always envious. You are the source of these ‘peoples’ lives, you are their watchmaker God. These imagined figures can love, die, hurt, and even breathe by your own hand. Maybe since I’ve never actually written anything that I don’t necessarily get it. I think I have all of these characters in my mind but in truth maybe they are just different fixations of me.
I love creative writing. When a teacher or professor asks us to draft essays on our own personal opinions I excel—I wrote the original draft of my college essay in 30 minutes. It was about how I felt as though I grew up in a car always waiting for my siblings to slip away to college so I could sit up front. However, when they do I don’t feel the same—what was a car ride if I didn’t have anyone to share it with?
But withhold me from the conversation and I draw a blank. I have ideas in my head but I can never execute. I have a beginning but I lack a middle never seeing an ending, I start a line but cannot finish it with a punch. My notebooks are full of half-written statements for characters that will maybe never see screen time.
I think I hear voices in my head but those are just thoughts I have crafted over and over again to make it seem as though they come from another place. I must face my version of a truth:
